Ash Lynx Spent His Life Under A Camera As A Victim And It Took His Broski Eiji The Photographer To Show

Eiji

banana fish x Mitski

Song lyrics from *I'm your man* by mitski

Ash when Eiji

AshEiji Tarot 🌹

Something that I love and appreciate about Ash Lynx that I don't see many people talking about is his lack of desire for personal revenge. It's such a small and obvious detail, that I don't think we stop to think about it enough, but Ash is not consumed by revenge. Even after everything that happened to him, we never see him express a desire to kill or torture Dino, or anyone else who hurt him, we just wants to be free. Even with researching banana fish he's just trying to figure out what's wrong with his brother so that he can cure him, his motive is never revenge. Wanting to destroy and make Dino suffer would be a completely understandable reaction, yet all he wants to do is prevent other children from experiencing the same things he did.

The only times we see Ash express a desire for revenge, is when people he loves are hurt. This is seen several times with Eiji, such as when he's shot and he chases the men and shoots them with rage in his eyes, or when Shorter dies and he kills Dawson as he begs for mercy. This is why at the start I emphasised *personal revenge*. But I just think that his overall lack of thirst for revenge and just deep desire to be free is an extremely important facet of his character, that really just highlights who he is on the inside beyond all the violence and suffering, and is also very telling of his strength.

This is also one of the reasons why I dislike the "yut lung is just ash without eiji" rhetoric, because I feel like it does such a disservice to both their characters. Yes, they've lived through similar trauma and are in several ways parallels to each other, but they're different people with or without someone to support them. First of all, before Eiji, Ash did have someone, Shorter, and he had other people he cared about such as Skipper and his gang. Obviously none where as influencial or life changing as Eiji was, but painting him as being completely alone before meeting Eiji simply isn't true. Secondly, Ash and Yut lung are very separate people with separate personalities and with indivual nuances to their stories despite their similarites. One of these is the desire for revenge. As I established Ash isn't consumed by personal revenge, but Yut Lung very much is, his entire first arc is his search for revenge agaisnt his own brothers, whom he wants to kill.

Yut Lung isn't Ash without Eiji, he's just Yut Lung. He's a different person with different responses and reactions to the world around him, and of course, having someone to love and care for him would be monumental, but he'd still be a completely different character to Ash, and in my personal opinion, would have a harder time accepting that love than him (as we see briefly with his connection with Sing).

Of course there's also differences in their stories that I think are worth noting. I won't do it on this post because frankly I've been procrastinating making lunch and I need to do that rn. But reducing Yut Lungs's character to an "ash without eiji" is truly tragic in my opinion, and not only a disservice to him as a character but also to his story. Yut lung isn't just there to be a parallel to Ash, and I feel like we sometimes forget that. Anyway I'll get more into the nuances of Yut lung's character, and the nuances of his and Ash's stories and they way they both parallel and differ from each other if y'all want. If not I'll probably forget, and it'll just live in my mind, keeping me awake at 4 am.

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Congrats on hitting 100 followers!!! u deserve waaay more honestly your writing is impeccable and beyond beautiful, we can't thank you enough for sharing it with us 🥺🫂

In your opinion, what careers would suit adult aslan and eiji? my friends always see ash as a librarian type but i feel like teaching would be a fun concept!

Thanks for the ask, Anon, and for reading my AshEiji fics! I've pondered this question many times as I brainstormed bajillion Married!AshEiji prompts. Allow me to spill some of my brain content to you:

Ash

I am 100000% on board with Ash as a teacher! I think it's a popular headcanon that he would teach English/Literature; I could also see him teaching Mathematics or Chemistry given his extensive intellect! To me, he'd be the cool teacher who would have hordes of kids hang out in his classroom as he eats the lunch Eiji packed for him.

Not entirely opposed to him being a professor, though! I would see it as his "side gig" as he writes literary critiques for academic journals. He feels very important when someone calls him "Dr. Callenreese-Okumura."

Public librarian! A lot of people believe this is a quiet job in which you're surrounded by books and read in your downtime—No. Ash would definitely be busy planning events, reading to children; cleaning said children's pee off the reading carpet; waxing poetic about the Dewey Decimal System; helping elderly people with their taxes or technology; telling said elderly people to stop watching porn on the computers; encouraging anxiety-ridden college students; and hefting drunk people out of the building.

Bookshop owner! He can info-dump whenever he wants to anyone he wants. He also organizes book clubs at his and Eiji's home. Somehow, he's always surprised that old women show up.

Honestly, I've thought about a period in which Ash just stays home to recuperate. He'd do volunteer work (learns how to cook in the process); submit to math journal problems—not for the prize money, but for the prestige that comes with winning; walk Buddy; garden; travel; write. Basically all of the things he never got to do when he was young.

Eiji

Photojournalist or photographer. I don't think I need to explain myself here. (For type of photography? Street, architecture, or travel. He tries to bring Ash along whenever he can, though they can make the distance work.)

A "tinkerer" (as Ash would call it) as a side job! He'd fix up old vintage cameras and resell them.

Just for the "cute" element, a professor as well. Two "Dr. Callenreese-Okumuras!!!" His photography students tease him about it.

DOG GROOMER! Eiji comes home and transfers all of the hair onto Ash when they hug. Buddy is all over him because of the scent of other dogs.

Exhibition curator. He definitely has a good eye for putting pieces together to narrate a story. He'd have Ash help him with research too. (They are dweebs that bond through academia, art, and history.)

Ash

the face eiji made here was so painful, it reminded me of another time he made it

so i was rewatching banana fish because i was getting a close online friend to watch it for her first time (this is ur sign to make ur besties suffer too if u havent already :>) and while watching episode 13, i got a better look at this pained expression eiji made..

in this scene, he was having an inner dialogue addressed to ash, where he speaks of the nightmares ash suffers through and how he pretends not to notice them and in this shot we see an example of it. eiji's back is turned to ash so that he can't see eiji's face or tell that he's awake. he then wonders to himself what ash dreamt of that had him so distressed at night. this is pretty cut-and-dry and there's nothing really to discuss here that hasn't been talked about already but i have such great appreciation for this show because the look on eiji's face here reminded me of a different face he made in episode 22:

something atrocious just happened to ash and eiji can tell immediately upon seeing the way he was acting when finally away from the commotion of gunfire. and while eiji hasn't gone through the things ash has gone through, hasn't witnessed them directly or even had knowledge of just how disgusting people could be up until recently, he looks at ash's current state, looks at how shaken up and afraid he is, and he looks so angry.

i know a lot of people (not the majority but definitely some) have a kind of reaction to this scene of frustration towards eiji for not being angry or "showing" his anger. they get mad at him for not saying anything or turning to violence or thinking of vengeance. and i think that reaction, while understandable, is not necessary here and would have ruined the weight of a scene like this, especially in the context of such a graphic crime like rape. even if he did have the reaction those people watching wanted, its not like he can deliver on it at all.

what he felt then was an intense anger, seething quietly but still present, towards the world. towards foxx. towards every adult in ash's life that didn't help or intervene or protect him through the hell ash was going through. and yet it already happened. bloodshed or blind fury wouldn't undo it, all it would do is add to ash's baggage and nobody wants that. realistically, he only had one thing that he could give to ash and it was the one thing ash needed most. he needed all his swaying pieces to be held together and no amount of outrage will ever have the same impact as that moment of silence where eiji held him in his arms.

those same things eiji wonders whether ash dreams of them are the things he witnessed ash walk away from during that moment of vulnerability. his exploitation. if it weren't for the greed of men, ash would not have had those nightmares, and that's why eiji had that same look on his face when hearing ash wake up from one. he knew that no matter what the nightmare was, it had something to do with the way he's either neglected or used and abused by adults all the time

god this show hurts. he probably wanted to do so much more in that moment yet all he could do was hold ash in his arms

Little Women dir. Greta Gerwig | 2019